THE GLOBE. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1880. OUR LONDON LETTER.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1865, 14 February 1880, Page 2

THE GLOBE. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1880. OUR LONDON LETTER.

[written specially poe the “globe.”] LONDON, January 1.

“ A Happy New Tear to you ” is the universal wish to day, and most people who give you this salutation add with more than usual warmth, “ and a prosperous one,” which means to say that the departed year has been anything but good. It has been a twelvemonth of depressed trade and bad weather, from first to last, for there was an entire absence of spring and summer, and what little there was of autumn has been followed by an extremely severe winter. During the past month I have been endeavoring to find some one who is old enough to recollect the year 1814, when the Thames was frozen over, and an ox was roasted on the ice, but I have not succeeded in discovering such a person, that is to say one who recollects what London was that winter. There are some who can tell me what the country was like, but that was before they had seen the metropolis. I have been engaged in this search because those whose duty it is to record these matters tell me that since that memorable winter before Waterloo there has not been so severe a frost as we experienced in London in the middle of last month, nor has there ever been so rapid a formation of thick ice on the ornamental waters of our parks. We were enduring a hard frost when last I wrote, but a few days later it became much intense, and lasted so for the greater part of the month. No sooner, however, wore the Christmas holidays over than the hard weather sudnenly departed, and we had a warmth exceeding that of an ordinary spring. Two days ago we had in the middle of the day quite a dreadful thunderstorm. Heavy rain followed, and it is only this afternoon that the weather seec-.s clearing up. “ What kind of a Christmas Day did you spend in England ?” I think I hear some of the latest emigrants to New Zealand ask. My friends, the year 1879 is one to be remembered as the year when we had no Christmas Day at all. From the twenty-fourth to the twenty-sixth of last December was one prolonged night, such as I have read that Arctic explorers experience. I was going to say that I saw the sun set on the former day and rise on the latter. I suppose it did so, but to tell you the exact truth, I am not prepared to say it did. It may have remained with you in the South Pacific, or it may have favored its special votaries, the Parsees, with its presence, but we in England know nothing of it lately, and I could produce official verification of the statement that in the week before Christmas all the sunshine we had during the seven days was altogether only two hours and a few minutes, while last week it was still less. I recollect waking up one morning last week when people wished me a Merry Christmas ; I looked out of my window, and could not see even the trees which are planted with a grim precision in the suburb where I dwell. I went to sleep again, and awoke to find it blacker than before, and the bells were inviting me to

“ Salute the happy morn When Christ the Saviour of Mankind was born.” But I did not, I confess, go to Church, nor did many other people that I could see. As the clock hands began to more round the earlier hours of the second half of the day, I saw faint visions of lights in the drawing and dining rooms of my neighbors, and occasionally a note or two of music, which told me that there was some jolification going on amongst them. Presently I heard the wellknown tramp of the lamplighter, and then I saw something like the misty outline of a star make its appearance. The dining hour approached ; I heard the muffled sound of wheels that brought me visitors who wished mein husky voices, “The compliments of the season I know that we ate the turkey, the roast beef, the plum pudding and the mince pie that every well-bred and loyal English man, woman, and child consumes at the great festival of the year, but still I do not believe that we had a Christmas Day. For over London, as I know, and over the greater part of England, I am told, there being all day—no, not all day, for day there was none, but from night to night—the blackest fog which has been seen in this country for many years. In 1878 we had what everybody called a “ white ” Christmas, because of the snow that laid inches thick on everything. In 1879 we had the very reverse, and from three o’clock on the afternoon of December 24th to about ten o’clock on the morning of the 26th there was not one ray of light in this country. So that I must decline to believe that we had a Christmas Day. It I were to venture upon telling you a hundredth part of the narratives that have been recounted to me by people who went out of their houses on that 25th of December to find other people’s houses, I should be set down as a writer of fiction with remarkably inventive powers. Though I should tell you nothing but the simplest truth, many readers would say, “ What a well, drawer of the ‘ long bow, ’ that correspondent of the ‘ Globe’ is ?” I will tell you one little history of that day, aa told to me by a man who must really have discovered the philosopher’s stone. He never saw Now Zealand, though he has been in all the other four quarters of the world. One of his friends in the far west of London, bade him leave his home, which is the farther south, on that ever to be remembered December 25th. He did so. For awhile he journeyed by rail, for the nerves of a man who has §facod enemies both black and white on many a battle field are not to be shaken by railway fog signals. After some time he changed into a Hansom cab, and stated whither he wished to be borne. Not, however, at that lightning like speed at which the gondolas of London are wont to travel, particularly at festive seasons, but with cautious steps, more like as if the cab was being drawn by a tired out donkey. Before he had left the outlines of Oxford street the driver thought he had better go no further, but cheered by the lively voice within he made another essay. However, he could not get as far as Kensington Gardens, and all that could be done was to creep back to the Club, whore the hero of this adventure calmly wished himself “a merry Christmas 11 over a plateful of cold roast beef. Ho, like we, declines to believe that we had a Christmas Day in 1879. But anyhow I know we had a Boxing Day, for the evening of December 26th found me, and thousands of other people who severe folks say are old enough to know bettor, prepared to laugh when the inimitable Harry Payne, the best do wn I ever saw, trotted on to the stage of Covent Garden Theatre, and announced the self-evident but almost classic truth "Hero we are again.” I own I was sorry to be restored to the grim realities of life again after I had spent upwards of two hours in a fairy land listening to the latest edition of the adventures of our old friend “ Sinbad the Sailor,” for those who write pantomius still chase the stock subjects for their titles, hough thsy only take the very thinnest outlines of their story and fill it in wilh the flesh and bones of modern 'opics. And this afforded another instance of .how popular nautical subjects have become since the bringing out of H.M.B. Pinafore,” which is still in full sail at the Opera Oomique. Last year everybody said that nothing could exceed the magnificence of the spectacle which the Messrs Gatti presented to celebrate their first Christmas at Oorent Garden, but I rather think that the glories of that production are eclipsed by the

splendor of the Ballet of Jewels, which is being nightly danced to crowded houses. Indeed, such is the popularity of this Pantomime that it might well make “ Blue Beard ” blush in Drury Lane, which is the latest place whore that very marrying man is to bo found, though, to tell you the truth, the proceeding of that seventh wife of his are but the slenderest silken thread in the fabric, which is mainly woven of modern materials, and in a very welcome fashion. I like to bo a child again, twice, at least, in the week after Christmas—once at C 0 'ent Garden and o ice at Dn i-y Lane ; and I don’t know this year which I like the best. Of course some people have spent Christmas under very adverse circumstances, and while we are gratified to road in the newspapers of the bountiful provision that is always made in the metropolitan workhouses and other asylums for the well being of the inmates on Christmas Day, one of our journals has this year treated us to a description of life in prison at that festival. And among the persons who have unexpectedly found themselves in prison is one very interesting man, Mr Lewis James Paine, who has boon committed to take his trial on a most extraordinary charge of murder. He has been a very much married man, but besides his wives he has made so many conquests amongst the fair sex that he might be set up for an English Don Juan. At the ago of nineteen he married one lady who speedily petitioned for a divorce and got it. His second wife did not live long after her marriage and since then he has married a third lady, who, to judge from her own admissions, is well matched with him on the score of morals. During this third term of matrimony he became acquainted with Miss Annie Jane Fanny McLean, who lived at the village of Brodway, in Worcestershire. She was the daughter of a deceased Colonel in the Indian Army, and neither very young nor very pretty. However, Lewis Paine beguiled her, as he had done many previous ladies, and for some time she lived with him in London. She was very fond of strong drink, and Mr Paine seems to have persuaded her to consume it to excess. She had some property and money, and it is charged against Mr Paine that he forced her to drink herself to death, with a view to securing her fortune to himself. Space prevents me from going at any length into the multitudinous details of this remarkable case, but if Mr Paine should escape with a verdict of manslaughter he will be a very lucky man. People who live “ by their wit” as it is said, have not been idle this Christmas, and I think much credit is due to one gentleman for great cleverness in an entirely new description of fraud. The capital with which he embarked on this new line of deception consisted of consummate assurance and a good suit of clothes, for it is astonishing bow critical tradespeople are as to the seams of a coat. However this man wore a garment of unexceptionable make, and must have bean an actor of considerable natural gifts, and a connoisseur in the good things of this life. Fortunately he was soon exposed, or he might have carried on his “little game” to the present time, and be spending “a happy new year” in feeding at other people’s expense. His plan was a simple one. Ho would walk into the shop of a west-end tradesman—one that he operated upon was the splendid establishment of Mr Puokridge in Oxford street — and announce to the gratified proprietor that he desired to make several Christmas presents to his friends, such as Stilton cheeses and port wine. Of course samples were freely forthcoming, and Mr Artful was enabled to have a very good luncheon without charge. Having satisfied himself as to the merits of each article he would declare which he preferred, and request the tradesman to send that afternoon to an address, which would afterwards be found to be false, for the names of the people to whom these “ presents’’ were to be sent. Next day the trick was repeated somewhere else, but fortunately Mr Puckridge wrote to the papers, and put a stop to this very novel and clever imposition. The Christmas holidays have not passed without the occurrence of a terrible disaster. We always expect some catastrophe either by land or sea about the end of the year, but the one that has befallen us this year is unparalleled in all its circumstances. As far as storms are concerned we had been enjoying a pretty quiet time until last Sunday, when we became aware of our proximity to the Atlantic, by the blowing of a bard south-westerly gale over the British islands. In London we had only a part of it, but over Ireland and Scotland its force was terrific. In the exposed estuary of the Tay, just south of Dundee, it was particularly bad. The water here is about two miles wide, and the deep and swiftly Sowing stream was crossed by a bridge carrying a single line of railway, and composed of massive iron girders standing on iron caissons, with brick and stone piers. It took several years to construct, and during its building a small portion of it was blown down. However, it was successfully finished, and little doubt was entertained as to its stability. Last Sunday night, however, just as a train was crossing it, one destructive blast swept away the whole of the central and heaviest portion of the bridge, which fell into the sea below, carrying with it the train and all its passengers, not one of whom escaped or could have survived the terrible fall, far the distance from the railway to the water was about one hundred feet. Strange to say no eye witnessed the actual disaster, nor in the fury of the gale was there any sound of the fall of the thousands of tons of iron and wood that fell to destruction in an instant. Several persons who knew the time the train was duo and were waiting to see whether it would venture across the Tay in the teeth of such a storm, saw the twinkling of lights in the carriages, and directly afterwards a flash of what appeared to be lightning. An alarm was raised, and it was found that the train and about a quarter of a mile of the bridge had disappeared,